Health: Bulimia

Posted on
Monday, 14 July 2014

People hide things in their lives and sometimes even the people closest to the have no idea. It can be hard physically and mentally hiding problems from the world, but eventually you have to open up and fight the pain to overcome our problems.

I have suffered from anxiety nearly the whole of my life and with the anxiety I felt bad about my image. Being so self conscious I developed an eating disorder and hid it from the rest of the world. Looking at me now you would never know the torture I was going through with a self hate for myself.

I started to develop an eating disorder near the begining of high school (secondary school). This is a major time in childrens lives where bullying can destroy self confidence. With me I had no self confidence before this time so it became harder during bullying. I was bullied for my weight, appearence, family and even for being smart.

Having so much hate thrusted towards me and have anxiety going to school things became tough. I started to eat irregularly, sometimes nothing at all. Other times I would eat so much then force myself to be sick. As much as I tried my weight never felt like it went down and the bullying never stopped. Things got to a point where I would go out with friends and eat little or nothing at all and tell my family I had eaten.

At the end of my High School life I fell into a bit of depression when my Grandma past away. This made the eating disorder a lot worse to the point I would refuse to eat anything for days, and when I did eat I would only eat a small sausage roll. Not wanting to go to school, or eat and having fights with my family made the anxiety and eating disorder worse. Things got to the point that I would be forced to eat a proper meal, but after a few months the depression was subsiding and things were starting to go back to normal.

In September I met my partner (of 5 years this year) and things were going great. When I met him he realized I had an eating disorder and made me eat, especially at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Things were slowly starting to get better and I thought I was starting to beat the disorder. Great!

But after a few years I headed to university. If you read my Anxiety post, you will know that I suffered from surviour anxiety during my uni years. Well this was not helped with my eating disorder, which got worse during university. I had a rough time at university and the kitchen was not a place I ever ventured, I only used the kitchen for 4 days at the start of uni and that was it. After I found things missing, cheese half eaten and my milk all drunk, I kept my food in my room. Now if you've been to uni you will know that you aren't supposed to have a fridge in your dorm room, but you can if it can be hidden, and the size fridge is tiny so not much food can be stored. This meant that I didn't have all the food that I should have and also meant that I didn't eat very much. this slowly made my eating disorder worse and depression started to set in again. Now feeling the way I felt and always wanting to go home I started making myself sick. The best way I thought to loose weight as well, but it isn't as easy to make yourself sick when you have an empty stomach.

Forcing yourself to be sick is damaging and can start to break down you gut lining, and knowing that some day making myself sick was harder than other day I resorted to laxatives. Laxatives are not the most pleasant experience, it can cause stomachache and leave you on the toilet for a long time. Two years of this treatment to my body and going on a food binge on the weekends, just to bring it back when I got back to uni was hard. Depression made the eating disorder less noticeable and fell more acceptable, I felt like I needed to do it to fit in. The bullying had stopped but in my mind the fear of bullying was there and my anxiety was so bad that I couldn't bring myself to go to uni or out.

Now I've graduated from uni and moved on laxatives are not my friend any more and I kicked the habit before I caused permanent damage. I can't tell you how I stopped and started to get better as I'm not sure why I started to get better. To be honest I am still suffering and could still go back into my old ways, which could happen if I hit a patch of further depression. At the moment I still have an eating disorder, I don't eat properly and don't think I will for a while until I train my mind that my life is OK. I do still have my moments where I feel the need to force myself to be sick but not as much as I used to.

But I keep telling myself to be happy and healthy and keep going forward. I have gained weight, which is good, but I still feel like I need to loose weight back to where I was. But, I know thinking like that will never make me happy even if I was at the weight I was.

But for all you suffering out there you are not alone and you will get through this. Just know that you are gorgeous, handsome and wonderful just the way you are.